Beard Transplants are now a Thing

DNA Info New York has discovered, during an interview with plastic surgeons, that beard transplants are now a thing, probably thanks in part to hirsute band The Beards (“If your dad doesn’t have a beard / You’ve got two mums / Two beardless mums”) but also, obviously, hipsters.

Apparently you can either get hairless patches filled in or go with a complete beard reconstruction, and dudes are paying up to $7,800 for the pleasure of the facial plugging.

Doctor Jeffrey Epstein has been offering the procedure in his Midtown East and Miami clinics for 12 years, but says he’s now averaging three surgeries a week as opposed to the handful or so each year which he was completing 10 years ago.

Another facial surgeon, Dr Yael Halaas, says it’s mainly dudes in their 20s and 30s who seek him out. “I get a lot of detail-oriented people – artists, architects,” he says. There are plenty of different types of men who are after the look, including patients who’ve never been very hairy, those experiencing gender transition, those with facial scarring (which may have effectively melted the follicles shut) or Hasidic Jews who need help with their sidelocks.

Similar to your standard hair plugs, the procedure involves spooning out the hair and follicle from the head (or sometimes the chest) and then jamming it into the jaw through micro-incisions. It takes eight hours and you get a local anaesthetic. Fabulous.

Words Zoë Radas